


in the devil’s territory

by newlovecassette



Category: Nogizaka46 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, F/F, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 08:33:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20703011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newlovecassette/pseuds/newlovecassette
Summary: Nanase didn’t expect the one to renew her faith to be someone aligned with the devil.





	in the devil’s territory

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. im not religious, but this fic features lots of religion talk, not in a positive or negative light particularly, its just mentioned a lot so if you’re not cool with that then dont read  
2\. i always appreciate comments and kudos! i love you all thank you for reading  
3\. thank you to my good friend rose who doesnt know anything about nogi but still beta read this for me <3

Nanase certainly has a complicated relationship with religion.

It’s been a part of her life, ever since she was young. Every Sunday, it becomes a routine. Picking out her nicest dress, pulling out the tiny silver cross necklace from under her shirt and letting it rest just under the collar.

Church is nice, she supposes. Everyone is kind and welcoming. It’s like a big family meeting, walking through the doors to find everyone sitting and chatting with each other. Warm light in a multitude of colors filters its way through the stained glass windows, and dapples the floor in jewel tones. The look of the church itself has always been Nanase’s favorite. She loves the detail in it all, the wooden carvings on the side of the pews, the huge vaulted ceilings like an old palace. She enjoys singing with everyone, and she likes staring behind the pastor’s head at the huge cross, all decorated with roses.

However—Nanase isn’t really sure if she believes in any of it.

When she was younger, she definitely believed in God, or at least, some sort of higher power. Something, someone, out there, had to be guiding her. It was the only thing that made sense. But Christianity—it came with so many rules, and it came with an overwhelming sense of guilt. Because if everything she had learned at church was true, Nanase was a sinner.

She tried her hardest to be a good Christian for her parents, she did. She already was an excellent student, at the top of her academy, and the only other thing her parents seemed to want from her was a dedication to the religion they had raised her on. So, Nanase persisted. She put on her silver cross every day. She went to church every Sunday. She kept a leather-bound Bible in her bag. She prayed before sleeping at night, even if it felt ridiculous.

The reason that Nanase tried so hard wasn’t because she believed it, really. It was because a guilt was swallowing her whole, all caused by a certain aspect of herself she couldn’t erase, as hard as she tried.

Nanase was a lesbian.

She liked girls. Yet, she was a girl. This was an unfortunate equation.

Yes, they lived in a more modern time and more people were open and accepting. But not her parents, not her teachers at school, not her pastor.

So—Nanase was starting to doubt the existence of God, because she was trying her very hardest, and yet it seemed that she was unable to just “pray the gay away”.

Not to mention, she had her fair share of other bad marks in God’s book. Sometimes, on weekends, she partook in drinking a lot more than just communion wine. She had fooled around with several girls from school, in places that would be considered blasphemous—the school chapel for one.

Sometimes, Nanase’s whole existence felt like a contradiction, a glitch in the great program of existence, and that was why she was starting to doubt everything. It seemed there was no Bible verse, no prayer for forgiveness, nothing that could rearrange her life in a way that made sense. She’s splitting into two people at this point—the good Nanase that her parents always desired her to be, and this other Nanase, the one that does things the good Nanase would never dream of.

These are the things she runs over in her head as she sits in church this fine Sunday. The pastor is talking, but she really isn’t listening, his words floating around her like passing fish under the sea. She stares at the painted portrait of Jesus on the wall, his clasped hands, and folds her own in her lap, closing her eyes.

_God, if you’re out there, why don’t you prove it to me._

She fiddles with the silver cross around her neck and opens her eyes again.

“I think we’re done for today, thank you, everyone,” the pastor says. Nanase’s mother pats her on her back with a smile.

“We’re going to go talk to the Smiths about the church potluck that’s happening next week, dear. We’ll be back in a bit.”

Nanase idly nods, watching as the congregation begins to stand and mill about with one another. She recognizes a lot of faces—there’s people she’s known since she was small, people from her school and from the boy’s academy.

However, among the crowd of familiar visages, a new one strikes her.

There’s a girl, sitting at the other end of the pew Nanase is sitting on. She’s gorgeous, in a velvety red dress that goes to her knees. She’s resting her chin on her palm, gazing ahead at the large cross on the wall, biting her bottom lip, caught in thought. Nanase’s never seen this girl in her life before, not at school, or around town. The church is pretty close knit, and its rare to get a complete stranger in the crowd during Sunday service.

She’s a little intrigued.

The girl turns her head, and her eyes meet Nanase’s.

There’s a split second, a tiny fraction of time, that Nanase feels something. Something wrong. It’s like the feeling you get when you look over the railing of a bridge—that stomach drop of fear, where a thousand possibilities run through your mind about what would happen to you if you accidentally tumbled over the edge. But it passes through her so fast, she barely notices it.

The girl smiles.

Nanase smiles back, and waves. She scoots down the pew until she’s sitting close enough to talk properly.

“Hi.”

She’s not usually one to initiate conversations like this, but she’s so deeply intrigued by this girl, and she’s got time to kill anyway.

“Hello,” the girl responds, leaning back a little, resting her arm at the top of the bench.

“I haven’t seen you here before.”

“I suppose it’s my first time.”

“Here? Or at church in general?”

“Just here.” The girl sticks out her hand. She’s got delicate, pretty fingers. “I just moved here. My name’s Maiyan.”

“I’m Nanase.” They shake hands, and Maiyan feels strangely... strong. Her grip is quite firm for a girl of her size. She seems practically delicate, pretty and smooth like a porcelain doll, yet the squeeze of her hand almost hurts.

“I think I go to your school,” Maiyan says, smiling a little bit bashfully. Nanase notices the little mole above her lip.

“I haven’t seen you around.”

“Well, I just started.”

“I could show you around the school.” Nanase pauses. “If you like.”

“I don’t really have any friends,” Maiyan laughs, “so I’d appreciate having someone.”

“Where did you come from?”

“Downstate.”

“Ah.”

“I’m surprised you noticed me, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Here, at the church. You said you hadn’t seen me before. There’s a lot of people here. I’m surprised you caught me.”

“I guess I have good eyes.”

“I guess you do.” Maiyan thumbs the hem of her dress, and makes eye contact with Nanase.

That feeling hits again.

It’s a sense of danger. Like when you’re walking home at night, and you start to imagine all the things hidden around every dark corner. It fades, as quick as it arrived.

Nanase plays with the cross around her neck, and smiles.

…

Nanase listens to the taps of her and Maiyan’s feet as they walk down the school hallway together.

“Up ahead is the chapel,” she says, gesturing to the cross that hangs over the doors at the end of the hallway. “No ones ever here, unless it’s service, or whatever.” She presses her ear against the door, and hears nothing.

“Do you spend a lot of time here?” Maiyan asks. Nanase notices her looking up at the cross over the door, a wary look in her eyes. In her school uniform, she looks a little odd—like she’s too old to be wearing it. Physically, she looks young, but there’s something just beyond Maiyan’s eyes that Nanase can’t figure out.

“I do. It’s quiet here, and no one bothers you.”

The door creaks open, and Nanase flicks on the light switch by the wall. It’s a small room, fit to hold about fifty or so people on its rows on wooden benches. There’s a big window on the side, one that lets in the afternoon light nicely, curtains half-drawn shut. At the opposite end of the room stands an intricately painted cross, surrounded by unlit candles.

After Maiyan tentatively steps in, she closes the door, letting the silent atmosphere sink in. Memories cross her mind—she’s come here a lot. Often to pray. One time to drink (an idea orchestrated by her friend Erika, who while being the academy’s star pianist, is also a surprisingly heavy partier). Sometimes, she brings girls here, because its quiet, and unbothered, and she knows how to jam a bobby pin in the lock so that it can’t be opened from the outside.

(Maiyan might be one of those girls she locks the door for. She isn’t sure yet.)

When she comes to pray, it’s often to ask forgiveness for the very things she does in this chapel. During services at the school, she has to close her eyes to try not and think about how she pinned a girl up against the cross on the wall and kissed her. The chapel is like the center of Nanase’s existence as a living contradiction, where the bad and the good Nanase meet in some sort of confusing battle.

She probably shouldn’t have brought Maiyan here, and she isn’t even fully sure why she did. It’s like exposing a private part of herself, but for some reason, she really wants to impress Maiyan. She’s got an odd magnetism to her. She’s a puzzle that Nanase wants to figure out.

“So do you go to church often?” Nanase asks.

“I used to,” Maiyan sits on one of the pews, observing the room with watchful eyes. “It’s been a while. But going to Catholic school and all...” She trails off, and her nails rap against the wood, making a gentle clicking noise. “And you?” she asks.

“I go with my family.”

“Every Sunday?”

“Every Sunday,” Nanase repeats. She sits down next to Maiyan, and the two of them stare at the cross on the far wall.

“Would you consider yourself a religious person, Nanase?” Maiyan says. The query is posed like a casual question, but it sends a chill down Nanase’s spine.

“That’s a big question to ask someone you met yesterday,” Nanase laughs nervously. “It’s... complicated.”

Maiyan licks her lips, and it makes Nanase’s chest tighten.

“Isn’t it for everyone?”

“I barely know you, Maiyan.”

Maiyan smiles. It’s just on the fringe of eerie, the way her eyes gleam and her lips curl.

“Would you like to know me?”

…

“I don’t understand where this new girl came from,” Kazumin remarks.

Nanase looks up from her notes. The bustling cafeteria is full of chatting schoolgirls, but Nanase prides herself in being able to study in even the most obnoxiously loud of places.

“What new girl?” she says, already knowing the answer.

“Her name’s like... Mai.... Mai something,” Kazumin takes a bite of her sandwich. “She just like, appeared one day. It doesn’t even make sense. Who starts at a new school two months before graduation anyway?”

“Nanase is her friend,” Manatsu announces, like it’s some big reveal, still with food in her mouth.

“What? You’ve got to tell us all about her!” Kazumin exclaims, mouth dropping open.

“She just goes to my church, is all. I don’t really know her.” Nanase puts the cap back on her highlighter. “Listen, I’m trying to study right now.”

“Why don’t you have senioritis like the rest of us?” whines Kazumin, “You don’t need to be studying, we’re all gonna be out of here soon enough! Your grades are fine.”

Nanase purses her lips, gazing at Kazumin with studious eyes.

“Your uniform is untucked,” she says flatly.

Kazumin glances down at where the white hem of her shirt hangs out over the top of her plaid skirt.

“I like it this way.”

“Yeah, but the nuns are going to spot you if you’re not careful.” She reaches over with a free hand to push the shirt back into Kazumin’s waistband.

“Such a goody-two shoes, Nanase,” snorts Manatsu.

“I guess it was the way I was raised,” Nanase says cooly.

“Come on!” Kazumin pouts. “Tell us about Mai... whatever her name is.”

“It’s Maiyan,” Nanase shuts her notebook. “and I really don’t know anything about her, okay? We’ve talked like two times.”

A voice suddenly speaks up.

“Miona said she saw you two going into the chapel a couple of times.”

Everyone turns to face the source of the comment—Asuka. She’s been silent all of lunch, just reading from her book, but she’s apparently been listening. At her words, Nanase wilts, preparing for the onslaught of incoming comments from her friends.

“The chapel?” Manatsu comically gasps.

“Nanase doesn’t just take any girl to the chapel,” Kazumin adds, with a knowing look.

“Wait!” Erika almost shouts. “Do you like her?”

“Oh my God,” Nanase mumbles, frustratedly clicking her pen. “All of you shut up.” She pauses, and casts a threatening look in Asuka’s direction. “And tell your girlfriend to stop being nosy and stay out of my business.”

Asuka shrugs, reaching into her bag of chips and turning the page of her book.

“You only take girls you like to the chapel!” Kazumin continues, completely ignoring Nanase’s demands for her to be quiet. “I know from experience. You know, in sophomore year, Nanase and I—”

Nanase cuts her off with a harsh slap to the leg, and Kazumin yelps.

“I was just giving her a tour of the school, alright? Nothing else. Let me finish my notes.”

“Must’ve hit a sore spot,” Erika giggles.

Nanase shoots her an icy look.

…

When Nanase has her sights set on a girl, she doesn’t like it to be noticed.

It’s for a couple of reasons.

Her friends teasingly refer to her as “the lesbian version of a playboy”. But that’s not information she wants publicly known. It’s not just about the girls knowing how many other girls she’s pulled into her orbit, it’s about her family, her teachers finding out. If she keeps her attractions quiet, they can just stay in-between her and the girls. Locked behind the heavy doors of the chapel, left lingering in bathroom stalls and on school rooftops, yes, but not in the minds of the watchful eyes all around her.

It’s also because some twisted part of Nanase really loves it. Loves quietly finding a girl, and finding the things that make her crumble and fall for her. Finding rhythms and patterns with another person, exchanging the softest lingering touches that keep them coming back.

In most situations, Nanase is the hunter, not the prey.

But with Maiyan, none of her usual tricks are working.

Usually, Nanase knows what makes each girl, even the straight ones, tick. She prides herself on being an observant person, detail oriented and careful with everything. Sometimes the girls just need someone, and even if they’re not really attracted to Nanase, she can be that someone. Sometimes they’re hopeless romantics, leaving roses in Nanase’s locker. Sometimes, they want to play Nanase’s game with her, flirting back, being teasing and devilish.

She’ll admit, she’s got her eyes on Maiyan. It’s simple, really. Maiyan is a pretty girl. Nanase likes pretty girls. Pretty girls are her vice, like her father and his cigarettes or her mother and her wine.

Maiyan had proposed they get to know each other, but it really just feels like Maiyan is picking apart Nanase and Nanase is getting nothing in return.

Is Nanase the prey in this situation? Instead of the hunter?

As Nanase walks down the school hallway to meet Maiyan at the chapel for fourth time this week, she tries to think of the things that she knows about Maiyan.

They’ve been meeting up almost every day, just to talk. She doesn’t tell her friends this at all, she doesn’t want them teasing her.

And yet, with so much talking, she still knows nothing about Maiyan at all.

She knows Maiyan moved from “downstate”, but she really isn’t specific about where exactly downstate. Maiyan doesn’t seem to have a family, or she isn’t close with them, because she never mentions parents or brothers or sisters. She has no idea where Maiyan goes home to when school ends.

She knows that Maiyan has a complicated relationship with religion, too. Maiyan mentions that when she was younger, she used to go to church a lot, but she talks about it so distantly, as if her childhood was decades ago. She says she has a belief in a higher power, but that she still isn’t sure about the morality of it all. It’s so eerily close to the thoughts that run around in Nanase’s head all day that she starts to wonder if Maiyan can read her mind.

The things Nanase knows about Maiyan are mostly gleaned from observation, not conversation.

Maiyan folds up the hem of her uniform skirt a few inches higher so that it appears a little shorter.

Maiyan has some sort of oral fixation or something, because she’s constantly biting her lips, running her tongue over them, biting her nails. (It’s driving Nanase insane. It’s like she’s doing it to purposely rile her up.)

Maiyan seems averse to the chapel entrance, but she always enters anyway. She often will spend a couple moments staring at the wooden cross above the door and just barely flinch when she walks through the doorframe.

Maiyan’s inquisitive. She always answers with a question, and it turns their conversations into a sort of feedback loop of inquiries and non-answers.

Today, Nanase decides, she’s going to be the one to get some answers out of Maiyan. All their conversations, Nanase’s been faltering, letting Maiyan get little pieces of information out of her. She can see it in Maiyan’s eyes—how she’s collecting all these puzzle pieces of Nanase and assembling them in her head to reveal her larger secrets. It’s exactly what Nanase does to every other girl. But now that it’s being done to her, she feels unnerved, on edge.

She shakes her head, getting her bangs out of her face as she approaches the chapel doors.

It’s fine. Nanase doesn’t always have to be in control. She’s thinking far too hard about all of this, anyway. Maiyan is just a new girl with no friends, and Nanase is just helping her out. Socializing. It doesn’t have to be some big chess game.

When she walks through the chapel door, she finds no one inside, as usual. Maiyan is probably late, and Nanase is a little early.

She walks down the carpeted gap between pews towards where the cross hangs in all its intricate glory. The afternoon sunlight shines down on it, and Nanase steps onto the stage, knees hitting the floor. She lets out a sigh, and reaches into the front pocket of her backpack, finding what she was looking for when she feels the wooden beads against her skin.

Carefully, she pulls out the rosary, wrapping it around her hand as she clasps her palms together, thinking hard.

_God_, she thinks, studying the delicately applied gold leaf on the cross in front of her, the way it glints in warm spring sunshine, _you still haven’t proven that you’re real._

She feels ridiculous, really. Her friends would make fun of her. But her friends are comfortable with their sexualities, their choices. They don’t feel like they have to please their parents. Nanase does.

If she asked Asuka for advice, she’d probably say something like “Fuck it, right?” which was never really helpful to Nanase at all. Erika would just tell her she’s in her head too much, Manatsu would probably say something well-meaning but insensitive, and Kazumin, well Kazumin would try her best at comforting her, but none of her words would be quite what Nanase needed to hear.

What did Nanase need to hear anyway? That God was real? That she would be forgiven for all the girls she had kissed? That no matter how many sins she committed, the fact that she was fucking trying to be the person her parents wanted her to be was all that mattered?

She closes her eyes.

_Forgive me, please. I’m trying. I know it doesn’t look like it, but I’m trying, I swear._

_I’m just so fucking lonely._

“Are you praying?” The voice cuts through the black hollow of Nanase’s thoughts, and her eyes snap open, her head turning on instinct. Her hands unclasp and the rosary clatters to the floor.

She sees—at the other end of the chapel, softly closing the door behind her—Maiyan.

“You’re early,” Nanase chokes out, trying to be casual.

“What were you praying about?”

“You sure like to ask personal questions,” Nanase stands up, and dusts off her knees. “What do you pray about?”

Maiyan sits down at one of the pews at the opposite end of the room, smiling.

Here it is again. Another round of chess, and she’s just laid the board on the table. Nanase watches Maiyan’s expression, the way she shifts through her thoughts.

“Hmm,” Maiyan thinks. “Good question.”

Nanase feels it again, that odd feeling that’s been visiting her lately. This time, it’s like the gust of air that comes from a truck that just barely misses hitting you on the street. A wind of possible death. She tries to still her beating heart, and sits down again on the stage steps.

A moment of silence transpires, then Maiyan breaks it.

“I pray about sin,” she says, and she shows her teeth with a grin that feels almost predatory. It’s really not that hard to imagine Maiyan with fangs—does that mean something?

Nanase laughs, a bit awkwardly.

“You talk so oddly, Maiyan.”

“I’ve been told I’m a bit out of touch with this generation.”

Nanase sits down on the pew on the opposite side of the aisle to Maiyan. She faces out, knees pointed in Maiyan’s direction, feet on the carpet of the aisle.

“This might sound a little dramatic but...” Nanase pauses, looks at the patterns on the carpet. “Who are you? Who even are you? We’ve been talking for a week and I still know nothing about you. You talk weird, and act weird, and I don’t understand what you want from me.”

“I’m Maiyan.”

Eyes narrowing, Nanase looks up and makes eye contact with Maiyan.

“I know that.”

“I’m an eighteen year old high school student. What more do you need to know?”

“If that’s all the information that’s needed, then why do you keep trying to find out about me?”

“I think you’re interesting.”

Nanase’s heart clenches. She ignores it.

“What if I think you’re interesting too?”

Maiyan stands up, and she walks over the aisle until she’s standing over Nanase. It’s vaguely threatening, but she’s still smiling pleasantly. She places a hand on Nanase’s shoulder, and her thumb brushes her neck. It sends a jolt of electricity, of fear, of attraction, through her skin, hairs raising on her neck.

“You don’t want to know me,” Maiyan whispers, and her thumb strokes over the chain to Nanase’s necklace, which is tucked under her uniform shirt.

“I do.” she replies, breath quickening.

“You really don’t.” Maiyan’s voice gets more hushed, more intimate. Then Nanase sees it—it only lasts for a few split seconds, but she sees it. A fire in Maiyan’s eyes. They gleam red like rubies, like fresh blood. Then they snap back to brown. “I have somewhere to be, actually.” Maiyan says, letting go of Nanase’s shoulder. “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? What?” Nanase asks, still reeling from her vague hallucination.

“We talk. Again. I learn more about you.”

“Don’t you know enough already?”

“Hm,” Maiyan hums. “Not yet. I still don’t know what you pray about,” She starts to walk away, and then turns to look over her shoulder. “I want to know your thoughts, Nanase.”

She leaves Nanase, sitting there, stunned.

…

Suddenly, Maiyan is in her classes. Nanase doesn’t know what happened, if she just missed Maiyan sitting at the back of the room, but she’s there. Every one of them. Saying answers to calculus equations, sharing her thoughts on Jane Eyre, passing Nanase a test tube in Chemistry like it’s nothing.

Then she comes to lunch.

Until then, Maiyan had felt like a secret. A separate piece of her life, away from her parents and her friends. Even more than her other endeavors, her other girls, she was entirely isolated from her friend's vision. Any questions about her were shut down instantly.

But then, one day, Maiyan strides up to the table in the cafeteria, holding her lunch tray, and says, “Can I sit here?”

“Of course,” Manatsu says, and she smiles at Nanase smugly, like she’s finally won. Kazumin looks surprised, but excited, and Asuka glances up from her book and smiles politely.

“Maiyan! We’ve heard a lot about you,” Erika says, and makes the most direct, uncomfortable eye contact with Nanase, who can feel her face heating up like it’s a hundred degrees out.

Maiyan wiggles onto the bench next to Nanase.

“You have?” she says, sweetly. Nanase gazes down at Maiyan’s tray. It’s just chicken strips, and a smear of ketchup. A weirdly juvenile taste for such an elegant girl.

“You’re really pretty,” Kazumin blurts out, not ever one for subtlety.

“That’s very kind of you,” Maiyan replies, and as she does, Nanase feels a hand come to rest on her bare knee. She jolts a little, almost dropping her fork. Nails scrape against her skin, too lightly to leave a mark or even hurt. If anything, it tickles.

What the hell is wrong with this girl? What kind of game is this? Nanase’s never been played like this. She’s the one that acts mysterious and exposes other’s vulnerabilities. Not vice versa. She’s never the vulnerable one. Nanase only is vulnerable to herself.

“Has Nanase been showing you around?” Erika says.

“Oh, yes. She’s been very kind.” A squeeze of Nanase’s thigh. She wants to scream.

“It’s strange that you’re joining the school with such little time left,” Manatsu remarks.

“Don’t be rude,” Asuka says, folding her book shut.

Maiyan smiles politely. “I don’t mind. I just move around a lot. Everyone’s got to settle down and finish somewhere, right?”

“You’re so right.” Erika nods. “You seem so smart and cool, Maiyan. You should eat with us all the time.”

“Nanase, are you ok? Your face is all red,” Kazumin says, out of oblivious concern. Manatsu snickers like a gremlin. Nanase wants to punch all her friends.

“I’m fine,” she tries to say casually, but it comes out as more of a strained whimper.

“You know, Nanase,” remarks Maiyan as she squeezes a little tighter, nails sure to dent her skin if even for a second, “I was having a little trouble with the calculus homework. I was wondering if I could come over to your place and you could help me study?”

Asuka quietly whistles and Erika coughs loudly.

“Nanase never says no to a pretty girl wanting to come over to her house,” Manatsu says, eyes meeting Nanase’s, eyebrows lifting just a little.

“I—” Nanase begins, trying to find the right words. Suddenly, the hand slips off her knee, and comes up to grab a chicken strip off the tray. The ghost of its grip still seems to float there. “Yeah, okay,” The words tumble out of her mouth before she can really even think about saying them. “I’m free.”

How has she only known Maiyan for a couple weeks, and yet, she would do anything she asked?

God works in mysterious ways.

…

Something about Maiyan just isn’t right.

It’s like she’s from another world, another planet. She speaks so strangely, like an alien trying to adjust to human language, yet she’s so insightful, so knowing. There’s something about the gracefulness to how she moves—it feels like a strange creature inhabiting someone else's body, or perhaps using a body again after a long time. Practiced, methodical, yet unsure.

A brief thought crosses Nanase’s mind.

Is Maiyan human?

She shakes it off immediately. A ridiculous idea. But it lingers, like a scary story that comes back to you right as you’re about to fall asleep.

Nanase’s mother had always told her that she asked too many questions.

“I shouldn’t have to explain to you why God is real,” she’d say, with a disapproving cluck of her tongue. “He just is. The evidence is everywhere. It’s part of our world, because he created it.”

Nanase still found herself perpetually questioning everything. She just wanted an answer, something to hold onto. Usually it had something to do with God. Now it was about Maiyan.

…

“Nice room,” Maiyan remarks nonchalantly as she sets down her bag.

“Thanks,” Nanase mumbles, sitting down on her bed. Maiyan starts walking around the room, observing. She picks up a framed photo of Nanase and Kazumin and smiles. Nanase rests her hands in her lap, twiddling her thumbs. She’s never had a girl in her room before, despite Manatsu’s earlier comments, and it feels odd. Once again, she’s letting Maiyan in on something intimate, something vulnerable.

Maiyan doesn’t say anything, just keeps wandering, drinking in information. She’s so strange.

“What do you need help with?” Nanase finally says.

Maiyan laughs.

“I don’t need help with calculus. I just wanted some alone time with you.” She leans back against the dresser. She’s holding one of Nanase’s pens in her hand, twirling it between her fingers.

Nanase’s brows knit together.

“We spend all our time together alone.”

“I mean... alone,” Maiyan punctuates, like that means anything. “Without the man upstairs watching.”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

(That’s a lie. She does understand, she knows, she feels it twisting in her gut, the climax of this strange dance they’ve been doing for weeks now. It’s familiar, in a sense, because Nanase has danced this dance with many a girl, but she’s never understood what it’s like to be not in the lead.)

“You want to know me, yes?” Maiyan tosses the pen in the air lightly, catches it. Nanase imagines a knife in its place. “So I propose we play a game.”

“A game?”

“Five questions. You ask me five questions, I answer truthfully. I get to ask you five questions too.”

“Isn’t that just a conversation?”

Maiyan smirks.

“Come on, don’t you want to know?” She tosses the pen in the air again, but this time it clatters to the floor.

“Fine.”

They’re about five feet apart, but Nanase studies Maiyan’s eyes, hoping for that flash again. That burning red, that something.

“You go first. Ask me something.” Maiyan leans back, sort of smugly.

Nanase drinks in the silence, the tension in the air, the strangeness of this whole interaction, tries to formulate a question in her head.

“Okay. Why do you really keep talking to me?”

Maiyan takes a step forward, bends down and picks up the pen, and starts twirling it again as she looks at Nanase, just slightly closer.

“Well, you’re interesting.”

“You keep saying that. Tell me more. Tell me why I’m interesting.”

There’s a tiny hint of that predator in Maiyan’s expression.

“Hmm...” she pauses, looking Nanase up and down. “You’re different, aren’t you? You're different. Different from the rest. I can sense it in you. That’s what drew me to you. I’m trying to figure out just what it is.”

It’s a sort of non-answer, yet there’s implications hidden in between the words. Nanase feels goosebumps on her arms, and it’s not even cold in the room. What is happening to her?

“My turn,” Maiyan continues. The pen keeps twisting between her fingers. Nanase doesn’t understand why she keeps imagining a blade in its place. “What’s your greatest fear?”

“Letting down my parents.” The answer comes out so quickly, as if someone unzipped her lips for her and tugged words out. It’s the truth, she just hadn’t expected to give it up so fast.

Maiyan takes another step closer.

“Interesting.”

It’s then that Nanase decides—she’s going to come out of this with the upper hand if she dies trying.

“Are you attracted to me?” she says, cooly.

Maiyan walks closer, again. The gap of floor between them is closing fast.

“Yes.” A pause. “Are you attracted to me?”

“Yes.” Nanase sits up a little straighter, trying to meet Maiyan’s eyes. 

Three more questions.

“Do you like girls?”

“Of course. Do you?”

“Yes.” Another pause, and Maiyan steps forward again, waiting for the next question. Nanase runs her tongue along her teeth. “Would you kiss me right now if you could?”

There’s not even a foot between them now.

“I’ve been dreaming of it,” Maiyan says, and she leans forward, her hand cupping the side of Nanase’s face. Fire rushes through Nanase’s veins, a raw energy she’s never felt before in her life, and suddenly—their lips smash together.

It’s a messy kiss, hurried and desperate, like they’re both searching for something in it that they don’t know how to find. Nanase stands up, pulls their mouths apart, spinning around and pushing Maiyan back down onto the bed, letting her crash against pillows, and then resumes. She sees it again in Maiyan’s eyes, that ruby-red glow that crackles with embers of flame. Maiyan laughs, almost hauntingly, as their lips touch again, again, again, again. Nanase feels like she’s drowning in a sea of black water, the only thing she can see being Maiyan, just Maiyan.

When she pulls away, catches her breath, her head spins. Maiyan is under her, hands laced around the back of Nanase’s neck, feeling the chain of her necklace again.

“Eager, aren’t we?” she says.

“Shut up,” Nanase almost growls, leaning in for another kiss—but Maiyan stops her.

“I still have more questions.”

“You’re kidding me.”

Maiyan traces along Nanase’s necklace, smiling. Their faces are so close—Nanase can smell her, the way she smells like pomegranates and smoke.

“I want to know what’s on this little necklace of yours that you’re always hiding.” She tugs, and pulls the necklace out from under Nanase’s shirt, tugging so that the charm on the end is tightly fisted in her palm.

Then—Maiyan screams.

Her hand pulls back, instantly, the tiny silver cross left dangling in the air. It’s glowing—like the metal is hot, burning hot, and then Nanase sees the smoke curling from Maiyan’s palm. She tries to close her hand quickly, but she sees it, for just a second. The burned, scalded imprint of the cross on the flesh of Maiyan’s palm.

That fire burns in Maiyan’s eyes, darker, heavier than ever before. She opens her lips just a little bit, and Nanase swears she sees fangs.

Everything goes black.


End file.
